China Launches Two More Satellites Into Orbit

On Sunday night at 11:22pm EDT, a Chinese Long March 4B satellite lifted off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center. This marks the second Chinese launch in the month of September and was, like the first launch, not publicly announced until after its completion.

The Chinese news outlet Xinhua reports that the rocket was carrying two satellites. Both satellites were placed into sun-synchronous orbit.

The first was the Yaogan-21 remote sensing satellite. According to the Xinhua and Chinese government, this satellite is intended to be used for scientific experiments, natural resource survey, estimation of crop yield and disaster relief.

The second satellite is the Tiantuo-2, a small 67kg satellite which is equipped with four video cameras and is able to track and record moving targets in real time. Its reported primary purpose is to be used with a system thats capable of tracking the location of ships at sea.

However, according to space industry analyst Bill Ostrove, the purpose of both of these satellites is widely believed by Western sources to be spy satellites aimed at providing intelligence to the Chinese military.

This is the second announced launch of the Long March 4B rocket since one experienced a third stage failure in December of 2013. That rocket was carrying the CBERS-3 satellite, which was part of a series of Earth imaging satellites as part of a joint project between China and Brazil. The next satellite in the series, CBERS-4, is tentatively scheduled for launch in December 2014.

To see what has launched and whats planned to launch this month, please see ourSeptember launch schedule.

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China Launches Two More Satellites Into Orbit